MOUNT VERNON, Ohio -- Classroom handouts questioning evolution were used as examples of faulty science, not to promote religion in the classroom, a middle-school teacher testified yesterday in a hearing to determine whether he should be fired.

The school board, in a 2008 vote, said it intended to fire John Freshwater for teaching creationism and intelligent design, failing to remove religious materials from the classroom and burning crosses on students' arms.

He was entitled to a hearing before a referee, who will make a recommendation to the board. Freshwater has been suspended without pay.

Freshwater told the referee that the handouts, describing how species such as the woodpecker and giraffe could not have evolved, demonstrated faulty analysis, bias and the wrongful application of the scientific method.

Parents of some of his students at Mount Vernon Middle School complained about the handouts, which they said students were prohibited from taking home.

Freshwater testified that he was not trying to hide the material.

"I try to conserve paper. I would use them over and recycle them. If a kid's absent, I'd say, 'What you need is right over there on the shelf.' "

Defense attorney R. Kelly Hamilton asked him to address each of several charges, including burning crosses on students' arms with a laboratory instrument.

Freshwater denied all of them, and he described the investigation against him as incomplete and biased.

"Do you feel that anybody had been branded in this?" Hamilton asked.

"Yes, me," Freshwater replied.

In January, a Case Western Reserve University lecturer on evolutionary theory called Freshwater's handouts "disastrously unfair" and "very damaging" to his students' understanding of science.

Asked during a break in the hearing whether Freshwater's explanation of the handouts was plausible, the school district's attorney, David Millstone, said: "I can only laugh.

"There are students who have already testified that (the handout exercise) wasn't just for that purpose."

Later in the day, Hamilton asked about religious-themed posters in Freshwater's classroom and books about creationism on shelves.

The posters, Freshwater said, were inspirational and patriotic. The books were given to him by students and parents.